


Call Waiting

by fellowshipper



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: 5 Times, 5+1 Things, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Shapeshifting Loki, Tony Stark is a Trouble Magnet, loki is trouble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 09:02:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19331386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fellowshipper/pseuds/fellowshipper
Summary: Five times Loki doesn’t get Tony to reveal to someone else long-distance that Loki is there and very much distracting him, and one time he does.





	1. The Call

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted some quick, shameless smut. 
> 
> Go figure.
> 
> Also, I originally envisioned this as being posted in one go, but I decided I wanted it separated out into chapters. There's a big discrepancy in chapter length, though, so just be warned.

“Hang on, babe. I gotta take this.” 

Such a simple phrase. Everyday usage. Normal.

_Harmless_. 

It should be as simple as saying that, extricating himself temporarily from where Loki has wound himself around him like an especially sexy octopus, wander off to go talk to . . . who is this? Tony looks down at his phone. Rob from SI UK about a looming product launch. 

Tony just needs to talk to Rob for, like, five minutes, and then he can come back to bed, let Loki continue to be that sexy octopus clinging to him with his mile-long limbs, and all will be well. 

Except that for whatever reason, this call on this otherwise uneventful afternoon is what finally breaks Loki. Not the Avengers. Not their ongoing weird-as-hell relationship that mostly everyone, even the people in it, pretends isn’t actually happening. Not his ever-shaky family life or drama back home in Asgard. Not his continued existence as a wanted international terrorist on the planet he’s inexplicably adopted as his new home. 

No. It’s a phone call. 

“Lokes, come on,” Tony whines, glowering at Loki when those stupidly long legs wrap around him and hold him in place in bed. They’re only half-naked. They weren’t even _doing_ anything besides just . . . okay, maybe Tony’s at half-mast and the kissing had extended into petting and Tony all but grinding against Loki’s hip. But it’s not like he’s leaving mid-thrust or anything, no matter how incredulously Loki is watching him. 

“Five minutes! Loki, seriously, this is import—hey, Rob!” he blurts, rolling his eyes as Loki reaches over to run a finger across the phone’s screen to accept the call— _without_ letting Tony up. 

Tony flops back onto the bed with a huff. 

“No, no, you’re fine,” Tony says, purposefully watching Loki’s face with a slow smirk. “I’m not up to much right now.” 

The smirk widens when Loki seems to take offense and gestures directly at his crotch. 

“Yeah, it’s good. So I heard from Krazinski that _Wired_ of all the damn places found this critical security bug in the OS shipping with the new models—yeah, I know. That’s what I said, too.” 

His breath hitches when Loki leans in close, all long and lithe and . . . long. And hungry. And _horny_ , apparently, because suddenly there are lips on his shoulder and a hand sliding down his stomach and under the waistband of his jeans. He squirms, hoping to dislodge his new pet octopus, but Loki only grins and nips at his shoulder with too-sharp teeth, his hand sinking down farther just for added insult. 

“I mean, I’d prefer they didn’t get shipped with the flaw rather than immediately needing patched on day one because, oh, sorry, everyone, but some underpaid freelance blogger outsmarted my development crew—no, no, I’m not saying—oh, come on, you know what I meant.” 

He hears and _feels_ Loki hum against his shoulder, the vibration traveling along his arm in a sensual wave that almost makes him want to hang up. The hand suddenly groping him through his boxers _definitely_ makes him want to hang up, but he focuses his breathing, concentrates, and powers through. 

“Look, let’s just . . . I don’t know, say it’s a supply issue. I don’t _know_. That’s why I’m paying you. Or someone’s paying you.” 

Tony closes his eyes and _desperately_ concentrates on his breathing as Loki’s hand gets heavier and more insistent and as the teeth start dragging against his collarbone now. Dark hair sweeps over his chest as Loki leans harder against him, licking a trail from Tony’s shoulder to the center of his throat, and Tony’s toes curl just a little against the mattress. 

“Jesus,” he breathes, and he waves his hand, annoyed, when Loki looks up with an expression like hope on his face. It falls immediately when Tony shakes his head. “Make something up, Rob. That’s what you’re good at. Just feed the distributors some bullshit about why we can’t get the new models out to them as promised, and if they bitch about it too much, send ‘em some freebies. I don’t care. Get it done. I’m not—no, I am _not_ shipping _anything_ with known serious security flaws.” 

Tony bites his lip before his mouth drops open in a silent gape at the ceiling as Loki’s clever tongue _and_ clever fingers tag-team him from different ends, all stroking in exactly the right places to make him squirm. 

Still. He’s not new to this game, and his voice remains perfectly, annoyingly zen. 

“Because I—okay, seriously, do I _really_ need to remind you that up until fairly recently, Stark Industries was probably the biggest and most diverse company contracting with the U.S. military? I do _not_ want to have to sit through another hearing, especially one that this time is all because some pinheads decided to ship out buggy phones. If this company can’t get goddamned _cellphones_ right, what exactly do you think the fucking _Pentagon_ is going to do? Call me up and congratulate me? Forget all about that nice, shiny tech they’ve still got licensed from me and which could now be a ticking time bomb because we can’t even get a fucking smartphone shipped out without turning it into something you could use to take over, like, some Canadian province or something? One of the less populated ones?” 

Loki’s fingers curve, and a fingernail scratches directly at his perineum at the precise moment Loki mouths over an especially sensitive area where the arc reactor used to sit, and Tony’s entire body shudders from head to toe. Loki chuckles, clearly pleased with himself, but Tony perseveres, his tone entirely unchanged. 

“No. No, Rob, what they’re _going_ to do is haul my ass up to Capitol Hill for twelve hours of televised hearings in which I will utterly embarrass them and make them wish my parents had never met, and—yes, I _do_ remember what happened last time. But _then,_ Rob, _then_ I get to go through the closed-door hearings for two days and get ripped by every douchebag in Washington who’s ever had any kind of beef with me, so basically _everyone_ , and—” 

“You’re very attractive when you’re angry like this,” Loki murmurs, flashing a toothy grin up at him while that perfect pink tongue darts out to swirl around one of Tony’s nipples. Tony tries to swat him away and instead is met only with a playful bite that makes his dick twitch—and _that’s_ a bad thing, too, because Loki’s hand is still _right there_ and trailing fingertips against the vein on the underside. 

Okay. Moving from half to three quarters then. Time to get off this call so _he_ can get off. 

“Oh my God. Just—look. Cancel the launch. No, no, don’t—you’re right. Don’t cancel it. Just say it’s delayed. I’ll talk to Jenkins over in client relations. Okay, yeah, you’re right, I’ll get someone else to do it. But I _will_ do it, and they’ll get everything smoothed over and it’ll be fine. Just relax.” 

A sudden squeeze around his cock makes his leg jerk, and he stares down at Loki in shock for a moment before sliding his hand against the mage’s head to get a fistful of black hair. 

“Relax,” he repeats, looking directly at Loki this time. “It’ll happen. Just need a little more time to work out the kinks.” 

Loki raises an eyebrow and squeezes again. 

“We’ve already worked those out. You’re just having second-thoughts,” he points out, voice barely even registering as a whisper. 

“Okay. Yeah. Sounds good. Let me know how it goes. Yeah. Bye. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Bye. _Bye._ ” 

Tony slides his thumb across the screen to end the call, drops the phone onto the nightstand, and then scrubs a hand over his face. The one still in Loki’s hair eases its grip, fingers carding delicately through the curls at the ends. 

“That didn’t go well, did it?” 

“It went . . . it went,” Tony agrees with a groan that’s only partly muffled by the hand still slapped across his face. It slides down farther and then drops onto his chest. “Pepper’s supposed to be the one doing all this.” 

“And why isn’t she?” 

“Vacation. She _said_ she was going to Fiji, but I know her, and I know she’s probably sitting on her sister’s couch in some backwater in Oregon, eating ice cream, and worrying about how I’m screwing everything up while she’s away.” He catches Loki’s grin and rolls his eyes. “Cut me some slack. That’s probably one she would’ve handed off to me anyway. I think I handled it okay, considering I was just a _little_ distracted.” 

He yanks at Loki’s hair, just enough to get his attention, and the sorcerer melts into the touch, eyes going half-lidded and his entire body going pliant. Huh. Control kink. Interesting. Tony files that away for future reference, just like every other kink he’s accidentally stumbled across when it comes to Loki. 

There aren’t many more left to discover, he thinks. 

“What was that all about, anyway?”

Loki shrugs and slings a leg over Tony’s to straddle him, kissing his way backwards down Tony’s chest and stomach. 

“I’ve warned you many times of my selfishness. I don’t wish to share you.” 

Tony blinks and gestures to the phone. “And as promised, it was less than five minutes. You can’t spare me for that long?” 

“You’re mortal. Every minute is fleeting with you.” 

“Wow. Way to kill the mood. Do you just see all humans are perpetually rotting corpses, or what? Is that your thing?” 

“I’ve killed nothing. Tonight. Certainly not the mood, as you put it,” Loki notes as he squeezes again. Aaand there it is. Fully formed and ready to go. Loki’s tongue flattens against Tony’s navel for a moment and finally dragging a long-suppressed, breathy moan from him. He looks up, green eyes almost black in the dim lighting and with how wide his pupils are. “Ah. There it is. Why were you hiding that from me before?” 

“Because—fuck, you’re good at that,” Tony interrupts himself, head tipping back slightly as Loki’s hand curves in _just_ the right way to short-circuit at least a full quadrant of his brain. “Because I don’t think you guys have phones up there in space Viking land, but here, it’s considered pretty bad form to make sex noises while on a call. I mean, unless you’re calling a place specifically for that, but that was really more of a thing before the internet came along. Millennials killed that, too. Oh my _God_ , you have _got_ to teach me how to do that wrist-rolling trick.” 

Loki seems as pleased as he ever is by anything Tony ever says—which isn’t much or often, honestly—but then goes right back to looking perturbed, even going so far as to prop his chin in his palm, though the hand down Tony’s pants continues its sinfully pleasant movements the same way anyone else might fidget or doodle while lost in thought. Anyone _normal_ , anyway. 

“But it wasn’t enough to break you.” 

“Break me?” Tony snorts and lets his finger go loose in Loki’s hair so that they can slide out, only for him to then push Loki’s hair back out of his face. “Oh. So that’s what this is—Loki, no. You are _not_ the first to try to distract me while I’m on a call. I’ve taken calls in places and doing things you wouldn’t believe.” Tony’s fingertips skate along one of those razor-sharp cheekbones, and Loki turns his head toward them, taking them into his mouth and sucking at them just enough to make Tony’s breath hitch again. “Don’t—don’t take it personally, babe. I’ve had a lot of practice.” 

“Not with me.” 

Tony’s fingertips fall away from Loki’s mouth wet and warm, and he trails them over his lover’s lips, his own pursing to match. 

“Why does that sound like a threat?” 

The hand still on him curves sharply and _pulls_ , and Tony nearly shoots off the bed for how goodwrongbad _yes_ it feels, particularly when Loki follows it up with a rough thumb stroke across the head. 

“Because it is, darling. You’ll see.” 

“All I really wanna see right now is—” Tony stops short as Loki waves a hand to magic away the rest of their clothes, and then he’s sliding backwards again, lower, mouth open and wet and wide and—oh. “That. Yep. That’s exactly what I was thinking.” 

Tony closes his eyes, grins, and believes that’s the end of the debate. 

Tony, as usual when it comes to Loki, is wrong.


	2. The Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _One day, even if it only happens when Tony is old and senile, or if Loki fixes that pesky mortality problem and Tony lives to see the inevitable heat death of the universe, Tony is going to remember to stop underestimating someone who voluntarily calls himself the god of mischief._

One day, even if it only happens when Tony is old and senile, or if Loki fixes that pesky mortality problem and Tony lives to see the inevitable heat death of the universe, Tony is going to remember to stop underestimating someone who voluntarily calls himself the _god of mischief._  

The dinner has gone . . . about as well as he’d expected, really. A lot of schmoozing, a lot of pretending to care about what investment bankers and venture capitalists and university presidents eager for his money have to say. He’s stumbled into a couple partially entertaining conversations—one with an intern’s supervisor, of all things. The supervisor himself is dry as dust, but when he shows Tony an email from Janette the Intern detailing her innovative take on a microprocessor, Tony nods, gets her contact information, and walks away to call her. 

He doesn’t remember exactly how the conversation went, but there was a fair amount of excited screaming and crying (not entirely unlike _most_ phone calls he’s had with women in his life) to get a call not just from Tony Stark himself, but to be told he was personally guaranteeing her a job upon graduation. 

Of course, being Tony, once he found she was from Carnegie Melon and not MIT, he immediately rescinded the offer—jokingly, and then he had been forced to reassure her that no, he was joking about _that_ , not the offer, and that Carnegie Melon was a completely acceptable choice which still did not deserve someone of her talents. 

No wonder they hadn’t invited him back for another commencement speech. 

The other conversation, still underway, is going to be his undoing. 

It isn’t the conversation itself, precisely. It’s that Loki has the _nerve_ to expect him to hold it with some arrogant, overly talkative shmuck from legal while all but jerking Tony off under the table, and he doesn’t even have the decency to look ashamed. 

“So then get this. Their defense counsel comes up to me after the hearing— _after_ the judge had just _explicitly_ ripped into him for trying to get me sanctioned for something that was his fault anyway—he comes up to me, right? And—” 

Tony nods politely. Always politely. It gives him something to focus on besides the overpowering urge to “accidentally” drop his fork under the table and use that as an excuse to punch Loki _directly_ in the balls while he’s down there. 

Well. Not that that would solve anything anyway, since Loki is currently very much a female lacking any outward genitalia Tony can punch discreetly. 

This might have been a tactical error. 

“It’ll be good for company morale to see the boss there,” Pepper had noted while trying to sell him on the idea of attending some inane SI awards dinner. 

“I’m not the boss anymore.” 

“You’re the boss people actually care about.” 

“Not true. You’re the one responsible for seeing that everyone gets paid.” 

Tony spun in his chair, swearing quietly under his breath when the ball he’d been tossing and catching came down in a different way and not directly in his grasp, bouncing instead under his workbench and rolling away. He hadn’t factored in the rotation correctly. That was embarrassing. Grade school error. He’d fired people for less. 

“No, that’s actually payroll, accounting, and HR.” Pepper’s heels clicked across the floor as she retrieved the ball from behind a potted plant. Some kind of tree. Tony had no memory of ever buying it or any knowledge of how it was still alive. Did he have elves who broke in to water his plants? Like the Tooth Fairy, but with a green thumb? 

“But you’re the one who sees that _they_ get paid and that the company actually has money to pay out. Thanks,” he added once the ball was deposited back into his hand. “Do we have elves who break in to water the plants? Like the Tooth Fairy, but with—” 

“That’s housekeeping. Tony, it’s just a dinner. I’m not asking you to make any speeches—” 

“Unless Hugh Kipler’s there. Dude’s like three-hundred years old. You’d think he’d find something better to do with his remaining minutes on Earth than tell me the same stories about ‘the old days’ that he tells me literally _every time_ I see him.” 

Pepper sighed. It was her default noise. “Mr. Kipler worked with your father—” 

“I _know_.” 

“—and you remind him of—” 

“Pepper, I love you dearly, but I will absolutely ping you in the head with this ball if you finish that sentence.” Tony held the ball as if to toss it directly at Pepper’s head, then went back to throwing it into the air in his own private, stationary game of catch. “For real, though, how old _is_ that guy? I remember him being ancient when _I_ was a kid.” 

“He’s retiring next year, and he’s a brilliant engineer you’re lucky to have.” 

Tony raised an eyebrow. “You got a thing for older men? You two hooking up, or . . .?” 

“His wife sends me flowers on my birthday every year. And not that my dating life is any of your business anymore, but as for my preference in men, I seem to like them younger, at least mentally. I can refer you to several of my exes for confirmation, including the most recent one.” 

Oh. Well. _That_ one stung, and Tony threw ( _tossed_ ) the ball at her then, making good on his previous threat. Pepper sidestepped it easily, sending it sailing across the room and onto a shelf, where it proceeded to knock various knickknacks onto the floor. She cringed as pieces continued to fall and clatter on the ground, and if Tony hadn’t known better, he’d have thought he’d _seen_ her long-abused last thread of patience with him snapping. 

“We really should work on your taste in men,” Tony conceded, holding his hands up in what he hoped was a placating gesture. “Okay. So this dinner.” Pepper’s shoulders began to crawl down from where they had bunched around her ears. “I just go in, shake some hands, pretend I care, and then I can go?” 

“Three hours.” 

“Bullshit. I can make the rounds in half an hour, tops.” 

“There’s a keynote speaker and, you know, the actual awards themselves. You can’t leave before then.” 

“That’s the _best_ time to leave.” 

“Two and a half.” 

Tony folded his arms over his chest. “One.” 

Pepper mirrored his gesture, but somehow it looked way more intimidating when she did it. Possibly because she was wearing glorified knives on her feet. Tony had often wondered if she actually had the aim and strength to embed one of her stilettos in his head if she threw it hard enough. 

“Two. And no playing on your phone the whole time. The Defense Secretary sent me a very . . . unhappy email about that last roundtable you attended.” 

“It was Avengers business.” 

“Playing Words With Friends with Rhodey doesn’t count!” 

Tony’s faced screwed up in surprise. “How did you even—” 

“Because he sent me a screenshot to ask for help beating you. Tony—” 

“Traitor.” 

“Just behave like the responsible, capable man I know is in there. Deep down. Way deep down. That’s all you need to do.”

 

 

So here Tony is. Responsible. Capable.

_Miserable._  

“And I told Pauley—that’s the defense attorney. He’s just local counsel. So anyway, I told him—” 

Tony squirms and forces a grin he hopes says “I’m fascinated, really” and not “I’m envisioning my salad fork poking through your eye.” Ordinarily he would just ignore the chode entirely, but he’s finding he _needs_ the distraction because Loki seems intent on making everyone at his table aware of _precisely_ how Tony looks and sounds when he’s about to come. 

Not that he’s quite there yet, but Loki’s movements are quicker now, more determined, and Tony thinks he might rip his kneecaps off for how tightly he’s clutching them under the table. 

“You’ll have to look like . . . not you,” Tony had pointed out earlier that night, much as it pained him. It was a shame Loki had to hide himself in public ( _international terrorist_ and all), but Loki seemed to always take it in stride, even treating it as a game now and then to see just how close he could get to his normal appearance without being recognized. 

This time, he’d glamoured himself—no, shapeshifted, because Tony had asked specifically in the car which it was, and Loki had pulled Tony’s hand under her dress to cup her between her thighs, grinning wickedly as Tony realized she also wasn’t wearing any sort of underwear. 

Anyway. 

She had gone with something dangerously close to her male form, all sharp angles and raven-black hair, startling green eyes contrasted with her pale skin. Like some kind of porn parody of Snow White, Tony thought, and she hadn’t helped matters by adding deep red lipstick to her look. Tony was certain when they walked in that someone would instantly spot her and call S.W.A.T., the FBI, S.H.I.E.L.D., and whoever else down on them, but no. She had just brought a lot of wandering glances her way and at her very prominently displayed chest specifically, but not the wrath of every government and military auxiliary unit which might be interested in detaining her. 

She had behaved herself perfectly well as Tony made the necessary rounds to greet and chat with people he had never met and likely would never see again. She had smiled and laughed politely (not too loudly, not showing _too_ many teeth) and asked targeted questions to keep the conversation moving. Her years ( _centuries_ ) as a prince were evident, as she seemed to have a firm grasp on the politics and etiquette of mind-numbingly boring social events, and she knew how to dial up the charm like any gracious host or hostess. 

They had made it through the keynote speech and the awards portion and were so close to finishing dinner and being able to make a tactfully short exit, and then the fly of his dress pants went down and he suddenly remembered that whole “god of mischief” part. 

He’d jumped at first, his plate bouncing with a clattering of silverware. When he looked over at Loki, expecting to see one of her hands suspiciously out of view, she had only looked at him with mock concern, eyes just a hint too wide to really be believable. 

And both hands above the table. 

“Are you all right?” 

Tony regained his composure quickly, though it threatened to shatter completely when he felt the ghost-like sensation of fingers which weren’t really there, a sensation he recognized from Loki’s telekinesis. The not-fingers began stroking him under the table, slow but firm and insistent, and Tony glanced down in wonder at his lap to see the outline of his cock moving, seemingly under its own power, beneath the heavy linen napkin drape over his lap. 

He’d scooted his chair in a little to let the dark tablecloth give him some more cover. 

“Totally fine. Sorry. Just went down the wrong way,” he lied, gesturing to his water. Loki had quirked a brow at him and smiled. 

“I hate when that happens.” 

That was almost thirty minutes ago, and Tony wants to scream with frustration and/or climax now, please. 

How the _hell_ Loki has managed to drag a handjob out this long, telekinetic or not, is beyond him. She takes breaks now and then when she draws Tony too near the edge, when she notices his breathing getting just a little too erratic. That’s all Tony can figure, anyway, like she’s some especially sadistic cat playing with a rodent before making the kill. 

She’ll start again and then stop, start and stop, all while finishing her dessert and making small talk with the other guests at their table, somehow fitting seamlessly into every conversation. Maybe she _had_ paid attention to all those etiquette lessons she had no doubt been forced to attend as part of the royal family. 

Tony was at least mostly certain those lessons hadn’t covered how to jerk someone off with her mind and/or magic while looking completely innocent right next to them, but maybe that was covered between lessons on which way to pass things around the table and which utensils were used for which dish. 

Boring-Ass Legal Guy is still droning on about something which is no doubt thrilling to _him_ , something about discovery disputes and more hearings and rule something-something, and Tony is finding it increasingly difficult to even pretend to give half a damn. All his blood has pooled in his groin, taking with it every scrap of attention he might have had to spare for anyone else. 

Still. Tony is pretty happy with himself and his composure. It’s taking every ounce of willpower he has, but he hasn’t started wriggling in his chair yet, nor has he excused himself for an awkward shuffle to the bathroom to go beat off in a stall just so he can think clearly again. He’s holding it together remarkably well, he thinks—and he _knows_ he is when he catches Loki darting glances at him that only he can really see are annoyed. 

“I told you I’ve had practice,” he whispers in her ear when he leans over toward her, arm draped around the back of her chair. “And so help me God, the second we get out of here, I’m making you pay for all this.” 

He feels the ghost hands tucking him back into his pants, zipping him up, and even offering a playful little pat, just as he _feels_ Loki’s grin twisting her mouth up. When she speaks, she does so loudly enough to be overheard, but her eyes, locked as they are on Tony’s, never move away. 

“We should be going soon, darling. I’m feeling a bit out of sorts. I think I should lay down.” 

 

 

Not ten minutes later, Tony has her on her back in the car, those impossibly long legs snared around his waist as he rocks into her over and over again, swearing the entire time about what a terrible, _terrible_ tease she is. 

Within fifteen minutes of leaving the dinner, he’s _finally_ found release and a shockingly comfortable pillow, all courtesy of Loki’s softer female body. He’s still inside her, and she still hasn’t made him move or even cleaned them up with a simple flick of her wrist as she usually does; Tony grimaces a little when he feels fluid seeping out between their joined bodies. Thank God for leather upholstery, he supposes. 

He can’t quite bring himself to care _too_ much, though, not when Loki is holding him like the only thing of importance in her world—it isn’t true, of course, because very little Loki ever does or says is _actually_ true—but it’s a nice thought that he’s just blissed out enough to allow himself without too much scrutiny. 

“I think you might be the devil,” he murmurs against her breasts, turning his head to kiss the top of the left one for no reason other than that it’s there. He feels Loki’s laughter in her chest just a fraction of a moment before the sound leaves her mouth, and he grins. “I really do.” 

“I think you might be right.” 

“Mm. Well. The devil’s got a rockin’ bod and a fantastic pair of tits then. I don’t remember _that_ from the, like, three times my mom got me to go to mass as a kid.” He tilts his head and cranes his neck to look up at Loki, eyelids heavy and drooping in contentment. “Hail Satan.” 

Loki laughs again, reaching down to press a talon-like nail against his lips. “Shh. It’s very bad form to pledge yourself to one god when you’ve already promised fealty to another.” She rolls her hips, slow and languid and _perfect_ , and Tony feels his blood stirring again, trying to rally a second effort; it doesn’t get anywhere, not yet, but it makes him whimper and hold onto her a little more tightly. “You might lose that first god’s favor.” 

“And then I could maybe get through a dinner or any conversation without a horny god feeling me up and trying to get me to humiliate myself? Nah. That’s no fun.” 

He expects one of Loki’s vicious mood swings to hit, but since Loki _never_ does what Tony expects, she just smiles down at him, almost sweetly, and strokes the back of her fingers against his cheek. 

“No. That’s no fun at all.”


	3. The Battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _What Tony keeps forgetting about Loki, and what he really should remember because it’s a problem he has as well, is that Loki gets bored easily. And when Loki gets bored, he tends to find creative, dangerous, and sometimes outright insane solutions._

What Tony keeps forgetting about Loki, and what he really should remember because it’s a problem he has as well, is that Loki gets bored easily. And when Loki gets bored, he tends to find creative, dangerous, and sometimes outright insane solutions. 

“Why us?” Clint’s somewhat muffled voice whines in Tony’s earpiece, bouncing around the Iron Man suit’s helmet and amplified. Clint whining in stereo. Great. “There has to be _one_ person left in Asgard he hasn’t trolled yet. Thor, tell him to take his bullshit home.” 

“He will no sooner listen to me than to you, Barton,” Thor points out, evidently from somewhere overhead, judging by the wind noise coming through the link. “Although as far as Loki’s usual mischief goes, this is surprisingly tame.” 

Tame, yes. 

Annoying as _hell_? 

Also yes. 

The Avengers shouldn’t be here. This is something a well-trained game warden could have handled, Tony thinks. Call DNR. They’re probably bored in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon. They might enjoy the work. 

But no. Instead, all because Loki got bored (and, Tony suspects, because he’d seen Loki watching a wildlife documentary the night before and very stupidly answered questions he’d _thought_ were innocent) and decided to become some kind of deranged animal activist, here they are. In the miserable heat of a mid-August New York day. Chasing animals freed from every zoo in the city, some of which had apparently been chosen completely at random to receive certain magical upgrades to enhance their speed and strength. 

Tony had gone to bed with Loki and then woken up alone, which in itself wasn’t unusual. But he hadn’t anticipated that hours later he would be fighting mutant penguins with the strength of small, angry toddlers. 

A sudden clattering noise draws Tony up short, making him pause in midair as he waits for the static over the comms to settle. He hears Steve grunt, something like the flapping of powerful wings, and then muffled squawking. 

“Cap? Everything cool?” 

“Yeah. Just . . .” Steve hesitates, sounding equal parts bewildered and irritated. “I think an eagle just tried to kill me.” 

Clint snorts, and Tony makes a tsking noise. “Sounds like you won. Please tell me we don’t have a PR nightmare on our hands now because you’re standing somewhere on Madison Avenue holding a dead symbol of American freedom.” 

“No! It’s—stop that.” The bird squawks again, the noise tinny but present over the comms, and Tony snickers. “It’s fine. Mad as hell, but it’s fine.” 

If nothing else, Tony has to give Loki credit for his ironic sense of humor. 

“Thor, any sign of Goat Boy yet?” Tony asks. 

“No, but I bel—” 

Thor’s voice cuts out into static, making Tony wince inside the helmet. “Thor?” 

_“Wrong Asgardian,”_ says a deeply familiar, smooth-as-silk voice, the lights on the HUD cutting out entirely before coming back green a few seconds later. It’s completely unnecessary, just more of Loki showing off, and Tony rolls his eyes. _“And I’ve told you. They’re not horns. They’re **fangs**.”_ 

“Then you should get a new design team, because those are just straight-up horns.” 

“What? Tony, are you—who are you talking to? Do you have eyes on Loki?” 

Tony blinks. Oh. That’s interesting. So Loki isn’t actually using the team’s comms. Knowing him, he just cut Thor’s out like the insufferable little brother he is. 

But that also means no one else can hear Loki, though they can hear Tony just fine, and— 

_“Are you having fun, Stark?”_  

“A blast,” he mutters, temporarily switching off his microphone to try to keep this part of the conversation muted. “You know, when most normal people get bored, they go for a walk or read or watch a movie or something.” 

_“And when **you’re** bored, you create weaponized flying suits of armor, and sometimes you buy entire companies on a whim. Neither of us is normal, so you’ll excuse me if I don’t take advice from such a blatant hypocrite.”_ 

The tone is mocking, obviously, but light, and Tony finds himself grinning behind the safety of his helmet anyway. 

“Do as I say, not as I do. Or something. Where did this idea even come from? Is this because of that show you were watching last night?” Loki says nothing, and Tony whistles. “Shit. Remind me to cross ‘Maximum Overdrive’ off the list of awful sci-fi classics I need to make you watch.” 

“Iron Man, come in.” 

Steve is getting antsy from the sounds of it, so Tony reengages the microphone. 

“Yeah, I’m here. What’s up?” 

“You went radio silent. You tell _us_ what’s up.” 

Tony loops around the block again, scanning for any sign of Loki’s presence. Nothing. No lunatic in green and gold and enough black leather and metal to give every biker in the country a spontaneous erection. No hordes of living puppets converging to worship at the feet of their new overlord. Just dozens of animals roaming around, most of them looking as befuddled as the humans watching them. 

“I don’t see him.” 

_“But you hear me.”_  

“Were you talking to him?” Steve asks, just on the verge of an accusatory tone, and Tony sighs as he touches down on a rooftop. 

“He popped in to say hi and then split. You know, do the usual taunting thing.” 

_“Oh, not the usual, no. And I haven’t gone.”_  

Tony rolls his eyes and cuts the mic feed to the team again. “I am _trying_ to save your ass here. Work with me.” 

A laugh like smoke and honey right in his ear, and Tony shivers when the sound of it crawls over him, _through_ him, sinking straight into his bones. 

_“No need to save **that**. I quite like it when you’re not overly gentle, actually.”_ 

Tony has half the mind to remove his helmet just so that he can facepalm properly. “Okay, I _know_ you know what idioms are, and I know you know I didn’t mean that literally.” He hesitates, eyes flicking upward. “I’ll remember that for when this is all said and done, though.” 

_“You shouldn’t make promises to a liar.”_  

“Yeah, probably not. Listen, why don’t we—” 

“Stark, what’s going on?” 

Tony ignores Clint’s confused attempts to reach him, at least for now. He’s more concerned with the green and gold shimmering in his peripheral vision. Turning, he sees Loki standing a few feet away on the rooftop, decked out in the milder version of his armor. It’s missing the heavy layers and the massive pauldrons that make him look like a knockoff Dragonball Z character, but it’s imposing enough in its own right. 

And he’s smiling, the bastard. 

Tony pops the faceplate just so that Loki can get a perfectly clear view of how annoyed he is right now. Not that that in any way stops Loki from walking closer and reaching into the mask to cup Tony’s face. 

“Hello, darling. How nice of you to come out to play with me today,” he says by way of greeting just a moment before he leans in for a kiss. Even as he’s sinking into it and kissing back, Tony has the insane mental image of Thor standing atop an adjacent building, watching them in abject horror. Well. Might as well give him a show if that’s the case, he thinks, and he pulls back on the gauntlet until the articulated finger plates retract, then the entire casing over the hand, freeing him to slide his hand up into Loki’s hair. It’s not shellacked into place today, and instead is left soft and pliant; Tony almost points out that apparently even gods aren’t immune to minor annoyances, as the curls are starting to frizz in the humidity. 

“Hey, babe,” Tony greets as the kiss ends, pretending he doesn’t still melt every time Loki strokes his thumb across his cheek and every time he looks at him like _that_ , like he’s the only thing which exists on this planet as far as Loki is concerned. That kind of all-encompassing interest is terrifying, smothering in its weight. It’s the look Tony imagines he has when he gets engrossed in a new project—and it’s very similar to the one he’s seen on Loki’s face when he’s lost to his studies or when he’s in full magician mode, bending reality around him to suit his own ends and delighting in wielding the universe’s chaos just as skillfully as any of his blades. 

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance we could call this off?” Tony gestures over the edge of the roof to indicate the insanity many stories below them. An elephant roars, glass crunches, and Tony winces. “Come on. Before someone gets hurt. You’ve had your fun. Now just reverse the spell and get all these animals back to their zoos—the _right_ ones, because I know you and you’ll try to put a tiger in the penguin exhibit or something just for shits and giggles—and then we can just go home and—” 

“Oh, no, Anthony,” Loki says, voice _dripping_ with seduction, and Tony is grateful he no longer has access to the HUD, though JARVIS is already in his ear warning him about a sudden spike in heartrate. “That is _not_ how this game is played at all. To begin with, you shouldn’t cage an animal. You should know that better than most. And secondly, you’re here to be a hero, aren’t you? So go be a hero. I’m merely along to keep you company.” 

Loki barely retracts his hands in time before the faceplate snaps back into place. When it does and the HUD comes back to life—still green, because of _course_ it is—another light blinks on to indicate that the microphone is active. Tony frowns when he can’t get it to go off again, which in turn encourages Loki, damn him, to chuckle, low and dark and deep. 

“And none of that, either. You won’t be cheating like that,” he says, this time the voice feeding through the ports at the side of the helmet registering his _real_ voice, not the one he’d magically inserted into the helmet itself. Tony has no doubt that will come back soon too, though. 

“Stark, I swear to God, if you’re dying in a hole somewhere because you got stomped to death by one of the magically enhanced critters your asshole boyfriend turned loose on us, I will _personally_ see to it that that detail makes it into every obituary. I’ll do a press tour to make sure the whole goddamn world knows that Tony Stark’s crazy wizard fuck buddy threw a zoo at him and crushed him under a giraffe.” 

Tony watches through the viewport as Loki makes a face like he’s just smelled something unpleasant. “I knew I should have killed Barton when I had the chance. He’ll be the first I drop a heavy animal onto. A nasty one. One that will eat him after it crushes him.” 

“No, don’t,” Tony warns, forgetting already that his microphone is live. Loki’s eyes light up in delight when Clint immediately assumes Tony is speaking to him and starts in on another rant. 

“Oh, this is fun,” Loki breathes in wonderment, grin pulling until it seems it might split his face in two. “Is your armor damaged at all?” 

Tony opens his mouth to respond, scowls, and then shakes his head. 

“Excellent. Then in that case . . .” Loki barely has to apply any strength to get a powerful grip on the neck of the suit, and then he whips his arm back, flinging Tony off the edge of the roof—and then some. 

Tony regains his bearings and engages the thrusters in his boots to stop his forward momentum. When he spins in mid-air several yards away, he sees Loki watching him with that same damnable grin. 

“Go be a hero, Tony.” 

Just out of sheer spite, Tony raises his hand to aim a repulsor blast—minimal power, barely enough for someone like Loki to even notice—but doesn’t have a chance to fire before Loki slashes a hand through the air and disappears in a shower of golden sparks. 

Tony willfully deceives himself into thinking that’s the end of it for the moment, that maybe they can just cordon off the area and round up the animals, then let the zookeepers work out which animal goes back to which zoo. 

That sense of peace and focus lasts all of five minutes before that honey-and-smoke voice is back in his ear again. 

_“Do hurry this along, won’t you? I’m getting bored again, and I have rather more enjoyable plans in mind for you. Would you like to hear? Please stay silent if yes.”_

Tony grits his teeth, unable to respond verbally now that his microphone won’t shut off. Loki, well aware Tony is the only one who can hear him, goes on. 

_“Perfect. I was hoping you would say yes. I’ve told you before that sorcery leaves a certain . . . build-up in me, haven’t I? I need to let it out or else it simply becomes unbearable. Sometimes using my abilities is enough to open the valve, as it were. That’s partially why we’ve found ourselves in this situation now, I confess.”_  

“Tony, we need you down here. Clint and Thor are in Queens. I’m getting pinned down in Gramercy. There are, uh . . . just get down here. I can’t explain this.” 

Tony closes his eyes briefly and does a U-turn to head that direction. “Yeah, I’m on it.” 

_“Speaking of being on it. There are other outlets I can use. That’s where you can help me. See, when I woke this morning, seeing you so peaceful, I wanted to wake you. I wanted to trail my lips down your body and wake it by touch alone. I considered doing that until you finally opened your eyes, precisely in time to see me take you into my mouth.”_  

Tony knows exactly what that mouth is capable of—both verbally and, more importantly, physically—and he has to bite his tongue to keep from making any noise. Maybe, he thinks, he can fly into the side of a skyscraper and knock himself out for the rest of the fight. That seems like a better plan than one-sided magic phone sex with Loki. 

_“I wanted to swallow you down and feel you work your way down my throat. I wanted to feel the delicious burn of it, and I’d have thanked you for it by opening you with my fingers, spreading you so slowly until your hips were moving restlessly all on their own, every movement either pushing you deeper onto my fingers or farther into my throat.”_  

There. That building right there. There’s a nice, solid brick portion without any windows, just in case anyone happens to be in that section. Tony thinks he could smack right into it, ask JARVIS the exact calculations as to velocity and angle he needs to hit it to knock himself out without causing any permanent damage. 

This suit was never designed to accommodate arousal, and Tony has a fleeting, baffling idea to incorporate such a feature into a future model. 

“Tony?” 

“Yeah, Cap, I heard you. I’m coming.” 

_“Oh, not yet, I hope. I’ve only just begun,”_ Loki somehow manages to convey in a tone that sounds like pouting. _“See, this morning’s idea was to have you begging for me, and then I would slate my thirst on you—slowly, so slowly, until you were driven mad with it. We would very likely still be in bed even now, I imagine. I would have had you spill for me, Tony. Over and over, each time a little harder than the last, each time making you more sensitive and receptive to all my excess sei_ _ðr pushing through you and driving more blood to your groin to get you ready again.”_  

Tony swallows hard and then holds his breath just to get JARVIS to stop blinking warnings at him about his heartrate. It’s pushing into triple digits now, and as far as JARVIS can tell, there’s no serious exertion to account for the elevated pace. 

_“I would have had you on your back first, your knees pushed up high alongside your chest so that I could watch your face as I first entered you. I do always enjoy that part, the way you bite your lip and wrinkle your nose just before your body relaxes for me. Do you know the phrase ‘fit like a glove’ here? Something like that, but not quite. More like a mold, I think. One I’ve had to take and form myself. Repeatedly. It’s really quite remarkable, you know. Even after we’ve been apart for some time, your body remembers the shape of me so well. It knows me, knows who it **really** belongs to.”_ 

Okay, there’s Steve, a tiny blue dot on the ground surrounded by an unlikely alliance of wolves and . . . are those polar bears? What the _fuck_ , Loki? Whatever. Tony can sort it out later. He just needs to get down there, and assuming he can even still walk at this point— 

_“I think I might have rolled you onto your stomach next. Then onto your knees. Then onto all fours. Then your side. You would come in every new position, and then you would whine and moan as your exhausted body sprang back to life with my sorcery. Then, because all of this is very intense, as you can appreciate, I might have decided to rest for a while and let you do the work. I would have had you ride me, your hands on my chest, head bowed—”_ And Tony knows, _knows_ that “in prayer” is right there, even if it’s unspoken. 

_“—your thighs burning as you chased your release. You’re so greedy. You always are. But I would have allowed it, would have **enjoyed** the sounds—your moans, our bodies sliding together, slick with sweat and fluid from every previous time I had finished inside you. I would have held your face and praised you for being so good for me, and you would shudder and arch and moan for me as your overly sensitive cock sliding across my stomach finally found the friction it needed to push you over into pure bliss, all while you continued riding me and squeezing down around me until you felt me come.”_

“Jesus fucking Christ on a cross,” Tony gets out, even with the sudden case of breathlessness, as he lands. If he stumbles just a half step, no one but a curious squirrel notices. Steve has more important business than worrying about Tony feeling thoroughly fucked out by a _god_ whispering all manner of filth into his ear over the past several minutes. 

But he _doesn’t_ say it in front of Steve, so it doesn’t count. Neither he nor Clint nor Thor overhears Tony’s minor break in control, and even if they did, they could always attribute it to his disbelief of the situation around them. So he still wins this game, and he points out exactly that to Loki after the animals just happen to all fall asleep long enough to allow the Avengers and the assorted wildlife and zookeeper teams to get them back to where they’re supposed to be. 

He points out that he’s won again, and Loki decides to help him “celebrate” later that night by teleporting directly into the bed Tony has begun thinking of as _theirs_ rather than just his. 

“Even for as easily as you distract everyone around you,” Loki begins, already peeling Tony’s clothing off and tossing it aside, “you are a very difficult man to distract yourself.” 

“Practice.” 

Loki hums noncommittally, kissing the first inch of exposed skin as soon as he sees it, and Tony relaxes into the bed, hands trailing up along Loki’s arms. 

“So. Feel better? Get all that pent-up energy out of your system?” 

Loki grins, feral and dangerous. “Not all of it, no.” 

Tony wakes the next morning feeling like he’s been run over, but this time, Loki is sound asleep beside him, face lax and free of the tension normally set into the features. 

He tells JARVIS to cancel anything on his calendar for the day, curls up next to the alarmingly innocent-looking god sharing his bed, and drifts back to sleep.


	4. The Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _So this is his life now: trying to be the responsible, capable adult Pepper believes he can be while his magic alien boyfriend sucks him off under his desk and he accidentally gives said magic alien boyfriend a footjob. Well. It’s still better than teaching intro level engineering classes, he guesses, so he can’t really be angry with how his life has turned out. Just . . . confused. Very, very confused._

Every second Thursday at 3 o’clock, Tony has a Skype meeting with the R&D team of SI East Coast, unless it happens to fall on a day when he’s in the Tower anyway and can just pop down for a visit. When he’s staying in Malibu, though, he insists on these calls just to try to maintain _some_ kind of up-to-date knowledge of what’s happening in his own company. And besides, he genuinely enjoys hanging out with the nerd crew and talking shop with them. _That’s_ when he’s in his element—not arguing over product launch dates or sitting through interminably long speeches as people congratulate themselves for whatever nonsense they’re getting awarded for. 

He sets up the call as always in his home office, sits down with a snack and some coffee as always, checks email (IE, deletes everything that doesn’t have his preferred codeword of the week in the subject line to get his attention) as always, and waits. 

And as always, Loki is there as well on the far side of the room, stretched out like an especially large cat on the chaise lounge by the window. This part of the house always gets the best mid-afternoon sun, and so Loki has more or less staked claim to it and declared it his favorite reading nook. Tony doesn’t mind, of course; he likes seeing Loki relaxed like this, engrossed in some spellbook he tried to explain to Tony was from an Alfheim archive believed to have been lost in a catastrophic fire some centuries earlier and which has just _happened_ to find its way into his possession. 

He sits with one leg crossed over the other at the ankle, both feet bare, the one not on the chaise bouncing slowly back and forth. He wears a simple pair of dark flannel pajama bottoms and a weathered gray Metallica shirt, both items he’s very clearly nabbed from Tony’s stash of junk clothing he wears in case they get ruined while tinkering in the workshop. The book is held in one hand, and every now and then he waves his free hand in the air, tracing invisible patterns that bring sparkling green trails of energy together before they, too, dissipate into nothing again. Tony can’t tell if he’s just fidgeting or actually practicing his spellcraft with whatever he’s reading, but it’s a sight to behold regardless. 

Loki doesn’t even seem to realize Tony’s in the room, for all he’s acknowledged Tony’s presence. It’s quiet, comfortable, and so teeth-achingly domestic that Tony almost longs for some crazed villain’s attack just to stop him from canceling the call and joining Loki with tea and a book of his own. 

He _thinks_ Loki isn’t paying attention, but as soon as the call goes from pleasant chit-chat and catching up to actually discussing what’s on the agenda, Tony glances around the side of the computer monitor and notices that Loki is nowhere in sight. Before he can even think to wonder about where the mage might have gone, he senses a presence under his desk and between his legs—and when he looks down, he notices Loki has teleported himself down there and is entirely nude, and he’s managed to magic Tony’s jeans and boxers away as well. 

And he’s grinning like the cat that just ate a whole fucking lot of canaries. 

“Jesus fuck!” Tony gasps in surprise, jerking back but then hastily rolling his chair back up toward the desk so that the webcam doesn’t get _too_ wide a shot and end up broadcasting him holding a Serious Business Chat completely naked from the hips down like some kind of pervert. Not that Tony hasn’t done that before, but in his defense, he was hungover and probably really thought he _was_ wearing pants. 

“Tony? Everything okay?” one of the guys asks, and Tony nods. 

“Yeah, yeah. Just. Fuck. Just spilled my coffee. I’ll be right with you. Hang on a sec.” 

He mutes the call and bends sideways to peer under the desk, eyes going huge as he watches Loki licking a path up the inside of his left thigh. 

“What the _hell_ are you doing?” 

“What does it look like? I was bored. And you didn’t much seem to enjoy my solution to the boredom last time, so I’ve decided to try a different tactic.” 

“You’re—not now!” Tony hisses, pushing at Loki with his feet and only getting swatted away like an annoying kitten. “Loki!” 

Loki laughs and makes sure to hold Tony’s gaze as he licks around the head until it’s soaked. “You need only tell me to stop and I will. You know that.” 

Then he closes his mouth over the head and _sucks_ , and if Tony believed in anything like a soul, he’d be convinced it was being sucked out as well. 

“You . . . oh, God. You really _are_ the devil.” 

Loki grins and adds the gentlest scrape of teeth, making Tony’s thighs tense involuntarily before Loki’s hands settle on them and start stroking there, too. 

“Oh, and also?” Loki adds, pulling away from Tony with an obscenely wet _pop_. He grins and flicks two fingers up. “Stop cheating.” 

Tony hits his head on the desk in his haste to sit back up in his chair, and sure enough, the mic is live again and refuses to allow itself to be turned off. 

He presses his foot sharply against Loki’s groin in retaliation, but rather than the startled grunt he expects, he only gets a satisfied moan that, however stifled it is by the cock back in his mouth, is still audible. 

So this is his life now: trying to be the responsible, capable adult Pepper believes he can be while his magic alien boyfriend sucks him off under his desk and he accidentally gives said magic alien boyfriend a footjob. Well. It’s still better than teaching intro level engineering classes, he guesses, so he can’t _really_ be angry with how his life has turned out. Just . . . confused. Very, very confused. 

The R&D team gives a heartfelt presentation of all their hopes and dreams and updates on some promising new tech they hope to farm out to JPL soon (and the latest on the in-office fantasy football league tournament), and Tony can do little more than smile, nod, and offer terse one-word answers to any questions asked of him. He _had_ been interested in the call up until a certain god of mischief decided to upgrade his title to god of realized porn fantasies and start blowing him under the desk. It’s such a porno-specific trope, in fact, that Tony half-seriously expects a wife he doesn’t even have to walk in, catch them, and then inexplicably suggest a threesome on the spot. 

The noises are getting louder as Loki gets more enthusiastic—or, more likely, as he realizes he’s losing _this_ game too because Tony has just chosen not to talk at all and risk giving away the conundrum he’s in. He can _feel_ Loki’s throat opening his closing around him and _hear_ the wet gulping noises that result, and after a few seconds of _that_ , then he hears the familiar sound of skin on skin. He leans back slightly in his chair and peers as nonchalantly as he can under the desk, mouth dropping open (and he smoothly disguises that with a yawn behind his hand) when he sees Loki fondling himself, the tight ring of his hand moving with quick, exacting strokes. 

He’s going to come right there on the floor with all those attendant noises, moaning around Tony’s cock still in his mouth and throat, the vibrations traveling along the shaft and settling deep into Tony’s gut, and then it’s all over. Tony’s going to have a whole hell of a lot of explaining to do, not least of all to HR because there’s probably some kind of sexual harassment drama in there about performing sex acts in front of employees, several of whom happen to be the opposite sex. He’s going to have to resign from the board, give up the company, and retreat to the Himalayas to find a kindly yogi to take him in. 

All because of a silvertongue who likes pushing buttons. 

“Oh, before we let you go, Kimbali wanted to touch base with you on those cooling towers, so let me just give her a call real quick. We can patch her in.” 

“Okay,” Tony forces out, toes curling against the floor as Loki, like a snake unhinging its jaw, somehow finds just a fraction of an inch more give to pull Tony in even deeper into his throat. He gags slightly, quietly, and Tony slumps sideways in his chair, one elbow propped on the arm of it so that he can use that hand to cover his mouth. Sure, now it just looks like he’s bored and rude, but no one expects much else out of him; they probably wouldn’t be too surprised to hear him start moaning his way through an orgasm either, quite honestly, but he’s _trying_. 

One of Loki’s unnaturally cool hands (the one not currently wrapped around his own cock, Tony figures it’s safe to assume) slides along Tony’s inner thigh to cup his balls, rolling them firmly in his palm, and Tony goes very, very still to keep from lashing out and driving his knee directly into the soft spot under Loki’s chin. 

Kimbali joins the chat, as promised, and rambles on and on and _on_ about schematics and minor tweaks and Tony nods along without saying much of anything. How can he, when all that’s going through his head is a variation of “ohgodohgodohgod” and throaty syllables that wouldn’t even form a word in any known language? 

He barely, _barely_ makes it off the call before his control snaps and he’s sinking back in his chair, reaching under the table to grab a handful of hair and holding Loki in place as he comes, gaping in open-mouthed shock at the ceiling as his hips jerk and Loki’s throat convulses around him with every swallow. 

“ _Actually_ the devil,” Tony half-groans, half-laughs once his brain remembers how to form words again, and it becomes _all_ groan when Loki laughs, the vibrations traveling along his still twitching length. “You asshole.” 

Loki laughs at that, too, and when Tony catches himself laughing along, he realizes somewhere in the back of his mind that he’s got it bad.


	5. The Interruption

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Clearly, the secret to all this is to just stop taking calls when there’s any chance Loki might be around. No calls, no video chats, no participation on the radio feed in the field. Tony just has to resort to being a Luddite. Maybe then this madness will end._

Clearly, the secret to all this is to just stop taking calls when there’s any chance Loki might be around. No calls, no video chats, no participation on the radio feed in the field. Tony just has to resort to being a Luddite. Maybe then this madness will end. 

Or maybe not. Loki will just find a new game, or he’ll change all the rules to this one. Hell, Tony’s not even sure if this current one even has rules at all or if the only objective is literally just for Loki to get him to reveal he’s getting laid while someone else is on the other line. Like that’s any huge shocker to anyone who knows him; Rhodey refuses to accept Tony’s calls anymore without JARVIS vetting them first (“I’ve seen things, Tony,” he’d explained with a thousand-yard-stare once, “and parts of you I never wanted to see”). 

So. No calls then. He told Loki this, even showed him as much by setting his phone to vibrate and placing it on the nightstand. 

“No distractions,” he’d said with a grin, wrapping a hand around the back of Loki’s neck to pull him in as he sank back against the bed. “Just you and me, babe. What do you think?” 

“I think you’re lying,” Loki said plainly, nipping at Tony’s jaw. “Quite a bold move, that, lying to the _god_ of lies.” 

“Eh, no one ever said I’m not ballsy.” 

“Or stupid.” 

“Or both. So . . . you interested, or you just gonna bitch at me?” 

“I can multitask,” Loki murmured against Tony’s neck, hands skimming down along his sides, and that was it. That was the end of Tony’s higher mental processes, as everything from then on devolved into . . . well, straight-up debauchery, honestly. Tony has no other words for it. There’s nothing else to say for how he’s been turned and twisted and pushed into positions, a pliant ragdoll for Loki’s use, _begging_ for it every time. He has nothing to say in his defense, not when he’s left teeth marks in Loki’s shoulder and bright red scratches down his back; they’ll all fade within a few minutes, as even a half-Asgardian’s skin is considerably more durable and faster healing than anything Tony has ever seen. But for a time, they’re there, and they’re _his_. 

He can’t pretend he doesn’t know what he’s doing when he lowers his eyes for a moment and then looks up at Loki with near reverence, playing on that boundless worship kink (and is it even a kink if the party in question is _literal royalty_ and possibly even a god?). He knows exactly how that’s going to hit Loki right in the gut, which will in turn earn Tony a good deal of praise and even greater reward. 

He’s on his stomach, working on his second orgasm of the night thanks to the long, slow slide of Loki’s cock in and out of his already well-used body, when he hears his phone vibrating on the nightstand, rattling the watch resting atop it. He ignores it in favor of pressing his forehead into the pillow and angling his hips back, prompting Loki to chuckle in that throaty rasp of his. The noise rattles Tony’s bones thanks to how Loki presses himself against Tony’s back, mouth at his ear. There’s just the barest hint of teeth against the skin, pulling a shiver from Tony. 

“That could be important,” Loki points out, going still for a moment. Tony whines and pushes back to encourage him to keep going, but trying to move Loki is always like trying to move a block of solid granite with his bare hands. He huffs and falls forward, silently cursing his luck as he settles for just squeezing; _that_ gets a response, though Loki only falters for a split second before pulling out entirely, much to Tony’s frustrated shock. 

“Oh, come on!” 

“It could be important,” Loki reiterates, and Tony doesn’t even need to look at Loki to know he’s smirking behind him, eyes likely bright and shining with the mischief he so treasures. “You don’t often receive calls this late.” 

“I’m not—” 

“You should answer it,” Loki interrupts, and before Tony can stop him, he reaches for the phone and drops it next to Tony’s head on the pillow. Tony’s eyes widen in horror as Loki swipes a finger across the screen to accept the call—and the instant Tony tries to speak, Loki drives back in hard enough to make Tony scoot half an inch up the bed. 

“Hello-ohhh,” he can’t help but blurt out, but before Loki can gloat at finally winning, Tony, thinking quickly, feigns a yawn. “Hey, sorry. Caught me in the middle of a yawn.” 

Loki apparently doesn’t agree with that, as he wraps those long fingers around Tony’s hips and uses them as anchors to pull him up from the mattress. A tiny thrill races along Tony’s spine; every other time Loki’s put him into this position, face pressed into the bed, ass up in the air, he’s been left barely able to even remember his own name. 

But maybe now isn’t really the _best_ time for that. 

Tony bites his lip as Loki pulls back so torturously slowly until he’s very nearly out, and when he doesn’t move, Tony realizes, suddenly angry with the entire universe for doing this to him, that Loki is waiting on him. 

“Speak, pet,” Loki orders in a low whisper, leaning forward to tap the screen and engage the speakerphone. “Colonel Rhodes is waiting.” 

Oh. Oh, because of _course_ it’s Rhodey. 

Tony is going to murder Loki. Somehow. He’ll find a way. 

“Hey, Tony. You busy?” 

_YES,_ Tony wants to shout, but the sudden pressure of hands squeezing around his hips warns him away from it. He glances over his shoulder to see Loki watching him expectantly, one eyebrow raised, and then he swears under his breath before turning back so that the microphone can pick up his voice. 

“Just hanging out in bed. What’s up?” 

Loki hums his approval behind him and begins to move, slowly at first, and okay. Okay. Just keep it slow, Tony thinks. He can get through this. 

Rhodey goes quiet for a moment before speaking up. “And when you say ‘hanging out in bed,’ given that it’s you, you mean . . .?” 

Holy God, but Loki is _good_ , and Tony hates him for it when he twists in just such a way as to hone in on Tony’s prostate, hammering against it with short, calculating thrusts that effectively fry Tony’s higher brain functions. 

But still. He’s already traumatized Rhodey enough. He pushes through, fingers curling against the top edge of the mattress. 

“Relax, Rhodes. It was a long day. I’m just sitting here with some quality entertainment to unwind before going to sleep.” 

“Yeah, you’re still not really alleviating any concerns here.” 

Tony sees stars behind his eyelids and turns his head away from the phone, smothering a moan into the pillow as Loki keeps relentlessly battering at his control. 

“Tony, so help me—” 

“What, you never watch porn to unwind?” Tony asks once he trusts himself enough to speak. Loki goes still for just a second, but the hand stroking over his hip is a reassuring sign. 

“Clever,” Loki praises, leaning over to whisper in Tony’s other ear, away from the phone. He follows by picking up the pace, forcing Tony to gape at the headboard and desperately try to keep from panting _too_ loudly. 

“Seriously? So you’re just sitting there watching porn—and nobody, not even you, just _watches_ porn—and you decide to answer the phone?” 

“What can I say? You’re special.” 

Loki laughs softly again behind him and reaches down to wrap a hand around Tony’s cock, thumb rolling over the head, and Tony’s entire body shudders from head to toe. It takes several seconds for him to decide he can speak again, and when he does, he’s quite impressed with himself that his voice isn’t terribly strained. 

“I don’t mean to be rude here, but I’m watching this frankly stunning brunet get drilled by another brunet who’s absolutely _unworldly_ , so . . .” 

“Oh, no, you’re the one who answered the phone, so you can spare a couple minutes.” 

Tony barely gets his mouth closed over his fist in time to cover the moan Loki pulls from him when he begins to alternate his movements, hand sliding down along Tony’s length in perfect counterrhythm to each thrust of his hips. 

“Okay, well, just make it quick. We’re getting to the good part. I don’t think you wanna be around for that.” 

Rhodey goes dead silent for a moment, and Tony wonders if he’s hung up ( _please_ ) before his voice rings out along the line again. “Uh. Right. Okay, listen. I wouldn’t bug you about this, but I’ve got brass on my ass about it, so here I am. You know how you told the Academy a while back that you’d come give a talk?” 

Tony bows his back as Loki speeds up again. There’s no way Rhodey can’t hear the bed beginning to creak a little with their movement, he thinks. There’s no _way_. 

“You mean like the Oscars? Am I getting an Oscar?” 

“You’re not an actor.” 

“You’d be surprised,” he forces out, and Loki bites his shoulder and laughs around it. 

“No, man. The Air Force Academy.” 

“Oh. That sounds much less fun.” 

“Yeah, probably. But you remember that, don’t you?” 

It’s getting harder for Tony to remember anything right now when Loki has enveloped his entire world. He buries his face in the crook of his arm, mouth hanging open, eyes squeezed shut, as Loki sets a punishing pace. His thighs quiver with the strain of just holding still instead of meeting his lover thrust for thrust, and he thinks he might never have hated anyone in his life so much as James Rhodes right in this exact instance. 

“Tony?” 

“Yeah, vaguely,” Tony spits out, regretting how breathless he sounds (because he _is_ ) but not about to draw more attention to it by apologizing. “What about it?” 

“Well, they asked me to call in a favor and tell you you’re up.” 

Tony’s head drops between his shoulders to stare down at himself, where he watches—upside-down—as Loki’s hand moves expertly and smoothly along his erection. He doesn’t even need to say it; Loki’s amusement is clear in the way he presses his thumb to the slit and begins snapping his hips in a forceful, deliberate way designed to utterly wreck Tony’s composure. Not that Loki himself is doing much better by this point, given his unsteady breathing and how frantic his movements are becoming. 

“At . . . shit, Rhodey, it’s almost 11 o’clock.” 

“I’ve been busy!” Rhodey shoots back defensively. “They’re just asking you to come by for a day to guest lecture a couple seminars for the cadets in the engineering and computer science programs.” 

“Fuck!” Tony cuts himself off, and he has very little hope that he can pass that off as irritation and not the very satisfied noise it is. Loki leans over him to get a better angle, utterly merciless as he speeds them both toward what Tony can already tell is going to be a very loud and messy climax. Rhodes needs to go. _Now_. “That sounds like . . . like a lot of work.” 

If Rhodey is suspicious, he says nothing and just keeps talking. “They’ll probably just have you do one lecture for the mechanical engineering students, one for the aeronautical engineers, and another one for the CS and computer engineering students. I can get details later. It’s not that big a deal, Tony, I promise. Just go out to Colorado with me, fly around in the suit for a little demo, make some college kids happy by taking some pictures with them, shake some hands, and then we’ll go find some really good edibles and call it a day.” 

“Are you—are you bribing me with drugs? Because first of all, I can get weed or anything else whenever I want it without even leaving my bed. Which sounds _really_ nice right now, actually,” he adds, rising up onto his knees when Loki’s arm wraps around his waist and tugs at him. At least from a distance he doesn’t need to worry about Rhodey overhearing him panting and groaning right next to the phone. “And second, I _distinctly_ remember a time when I couldn’t get you to even so much as smoke a cigarette with me, and now you want to get stoned with me?” 

“I didn’t say I’d actually be doing anything.” 

“Didn’t say you wouldn’t be, either.” 

Tony thought, arrogantly, that he’d mastered his body’s responses and gained full control. But then a sudden twist of Loki’s hand coupled with an especially vicious thrust shatters everything and sends Tony spiraling, rigid and shaking and held upright only by Loki’s arm still around his midsection and by the hand he throws out to sink into the mage’s hair. He’s only dimly aware of Loki’s teeth in the tender juncture of his neck and shoulder, lost as he is in chasing the pleasure building in his gut. An intense warmth spreads through him, and then suddenly Loki’s hand is slick and its movements much smoother along his cock, and he’s shaking again, hips pushing back hard to keep Loki exactly where he’s at and to keep the pressure on one particular spot as he falls apart. 

“Oh—okay, yeah, whatever, I’m game. Gotta go, Rhodes. Bye!” 

Tony fumbles with the phone, stabbing at the screen until he sees the call end. 

“Fuck! Oh, God! Rhodey!” 

Game over. 

That’s it. That’s all she wrote. Tony freezes, not even the thick haze of orgasm enough to distract him from what he’s just done, what he’s just _shouted_. And if that wasn’t enough, Loki’s peals of laughter pouring directly into his ear would certainly do it. 

Tony watches the screen fade to black, and all he can do is groan and drop his head back against Loki’s shoulder as the mage rides out his own finish. 

 

 

“I’m pretty sure Rhodey knows what was going on.” 

“Mm,” Loki concedes, wrapping himself around Tony and dropping kisses along his chest and shoulder, whatever he can reach that doesn’t require moving too much. 

Three and a half times now—because Tony, unlike a certain Asgardian in his bed, doesn’t have unlimited stamina and is still bound by the same refractory period of most middle-aged human men, and so he had to sit out the aborted fourth time. Loki hadn’t lodged any complaints about considering Tony’s mouth to be a poor consolation prize, anyway. 

Three and a half times, both of them sated and comfortably tired, and Tony is never going to argue with getting Loki like this: quiet and gentle and . . . maybe “cuddly” isn’t the right word. It just seems so very wrong when applied to Loki. Affectionate, then. He lets the guards and the mask down and looks so much younger than the harsh lines around his eyes and mouth would suggest. He smiles more— _genuine_ smiles, not those too-sharp grins that simultaneously turn Tony on and make him think Loki’s envisioning what his body looks like without the skin covering it. 

“What are you doing to me?” Tony asks softly, turning onto his side to get a better look at his lover—and he isn’t sure when he started thinking of Loki in that way, but there it is, and the thought feels right to him so he keeps it. Loki looks up at him with eyes much softer than usual, and Tony catches himself grinning as he runs his thumb along the seam of Loki’s lips. 

“Right now? Nothing. Give me a moment, however, and—” 

“No,” Tony laugh-groans, his body already protesting the very notion of taking any further abuse tonight. “I just meant . . .” 

“I knew what you meant.” Loki leans forward for a brief kiss, much gentler and easier than those they usually share, and Tony melts into it, hand sliding back into Loki’s hair to keep him close. “Precisely what you’re doing to me. It only seems fair.” 

“Because you’re all about fairness.” 

“Of course.” Loki grins, mischief written into every feature, and he rolls onto his back to stretch. Tony marvels at the sight of how those long limbs take up nearly the entire length of the bed. Loki’s head drops to the side so that he can look at Tony again, still grinning. “I believe I won, by the way.” 

It’s instinctual for Tony to immediately launch a protest, but he tamps down on the urge and just grumbles instead, sliding under Loki’s arm to rest his head against the mage’s chest. The solid weight of the arm comes down on him shortly after, curling around his shoulders. 

“Not really. I ended the call before it got really bad. But if it means that much to you, sure. Congratulations. You probably traumatized my best friend.” 

“Me? You’re the one who finished with his name on your lips. If anything, I rather think _I_ should be the one upset by all this.” Loki gives Tony a mockingly sincere look before it dissolves into one of thoughtful amusement. “I don’t suppose the colonel would be interested—” 

“No. Absolutely not,” Tony chokes out, and Loki laughs at how quickly the idea gets shot down. “Rhodey’s straight. Like, _completely_ straight. I . . . might have already tried a long time ago and found that out.” Loki’s eyebrows lift and his grin widens, but Tony shakes his head. “Story for another day. But anyway. I don’t think we ever established what the prize would be for winning. Actually, I don’t think we ever formally announced we were playing.” 

“We didn’t. There was only going to be one outcome, Tony: I was going to break you down and win. It was only ever a question of when that would happen and what it would take to get there.” 

“So you started a game with me that I had no chance of winning.” 

Loki shrugs. “You can hardly be surprised, given who I am.” 

“I’m not. Not really. Just seems a little unsporting, that’s all.” 

“Well then.” 

Tony lets out a noise that is most definitely _not_ an undignified squeak as Loki uses the leverage of his arm around Tony’s shoulders to roll them over until Tony is on his back with a surprisingly heavy god of mischief atop him, all sharp angles softened only by a pair of playful eyes. 

“Please allow me to demonstrate that I can be a _very_ gracious winner.”


	6. The One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Tony knows Loki. Knows him as much as he’s ever known anyone, probably more, and . . . well. These aren’t the idle observations of a booty call. Tony knows that, too._

Two months pass in which Tony is finally, _finally_ allowed to take calls or speak via the team’s communication link without living in perpetual fear of Loki doing something to utterly humiliate him—well, to bring humiliation to someone not named Tony Stark and who still felt things like shame and embarrassment. That isn’t to say Loki doesn’t still pop in for unannounced visits; he seems to take a genuine kind of joy in watching Tony squirm during these clandestine meetings. But he also doesn’t go out of his way to try to make Tony reveal everything, nor does he scold Tony when he switches off the microphone or video feed. 

It’s how Tony makes it through an entire debriefing after a mission on his knees with his mouth wrapped around Loki’s cock, free to make all the obscene porn star noises he wants while Steve prattles on about tactics and teamwork and how they can improve for next time. That’s all well and good until he looks up and notices Loki has shapeshifted into Steve and is mocking him as he speaks; that kills the mood thoroughly for the next several days. 

Once every couple weeks or so, Steve gathers the team for mission sitreps, regardless of whether they all happen to be in the same area or scattered around the world on different assignments. That’s the _official_ reason behind the meetings, at least; Tony actually suspects it’s because of a sentimental streak in the old soldier and that he just gets lonely and misses the closest things he has to friends when they’re apart for too long. The mission discussions themselves only take up the first few minutes of the call, usually. Then they devolve into trading amusing stories and generally ribbing one another for the next hour. 

This is one of those calls. 

Tony looks at the array spread out before him, all of the various Avengers’ faces on holographic displays arranged in a semicircle around his station in the workshop. He’s back in Malibu for the time being. Rhodey had finally gotten him to the Academy, and after a thoroughly boring day that ended with some decent weed but mostly just a headache, he’d decided to head home—to his _first_ home—and wait for Loki to figure out where he was. 

“Impromptu beach vacation,” he’d pointed out the next morning after Loki teleported into the living room, and here they have stayed for the past several days, occasionally engaging in their usual filth but mostly just lounging and pretending they don’t both have real lives to get back to. Whatever “real” entails for either of them, anyway. Loki has to go back to pulling the wings off butterflies or turning people into toads or whatever it is that he does when he’s not around. Tony, meanwhile, has to go back to New York soon. Pepper won’t stop texting him about an upcoming press conference, something about a joint venture between SI and MIT and . . . okay, maybe Tony should read those messages more closely. It’s just hard to find the desire to do so when he has an attractive maybe-god lavishing him with such attention. 

It’s alarmingly domestic, and Tony isn’t quite sure how to cope with sharing not just a bed with Loki. He’s sharing his home in general, sure, but there’s so much more to it now. They share meals, especially now that Tony has inadvertently gotten Loki addicted to sushi. They share the couch in the evenings, sometimes using each other as pillows, sometimes simply existing in comfortable silence on either end while they read—or, as in last night’s case, while Tony channel surfs and marvels at Loki shapeshifting into various characters just to mess with Tony. He still doesn’t know how to cope with looking over to see Robocop sitting on the couch next to him, using Loki’s own voice to proposition him. 

They share clothing, however comical it may be; Tony’s pants and shirts are far too short for Loki, and at any rate, it’s too surreal for him to see Loki wandering around barefoot in a pair of too-short flannel pajama bottoms and a threadbare Simpsons T-shirt Tony thinks he got sometime in the mid-‘90s. 

They share the bathroom, and not even strictly in the fun sense of taking showers together (although that happens too, and Tony’s always glad for it). Loki has commandeered a section of the sink counter for his own belongings, and Tony finds it odd for some reason to think of Loki, this ancient god-alien who’s some kind of cross between a Shakespeare character and a Viking, having such normal things like a toothbrush or a comb or some kind of gel-like material in a small glass jar that Tony can only presume is hair gel. 

Even before Tony had to take this call, they were sharing the same table in the workshop, sitting across from each other to work on their individual projects. All Tony can glean is that Loki is reworking a spell he’s encountered recently in some forgotten book from a place Tony can’t actually pronounce, something with way too many letters and not enough vowels to make any sense. He scribbles notes into a notebook, lips moving silently now and then as if he’s testing out the wording before he scratches out a line, adds to it, marks out words, draws arrows to another section of a page, rips out entire other pages. 

He’s like an angry grad student struggling with an essay, dressed in his finest borrowed clothing fresh from the dirty laundry basket because they should be good for _one_ more use. Today it’s a pair of black sweats and a dark blue “Virginia is for Lovers” souvenir T-shirt Tony vaguely recalls buying while high off his ass in Virginia Beach at least a decade earlier). A cup of tea rests at his elbow—chai, of course, because he’d expect nothing less than for Loki to be addicted to something spicy and flavorful, and in latte form because Tony made the mistake of introducing him to lattes in general and now Loki’s developed another new addiction besides fresh sushi rolls. A half-eaten bagel sits on a napkin next to the tea. Blueberry, naturally. 

Loki had looked so mind-meltingly adorable—which is _not_ a word Tony envisioned himself _ever_ using for a would-be global dictator and a hostile alien who had tried to kill him more than once—that Tony had nearly missed the call, so distracted as he was just staring at Loki at the opposite end of the table. It was only JARVIS’s insistence that knocked Tony from his thoughts and got him to pay attention to the incoming call alert. 

So here he sits now, chuckling to himself as he half-listens to Natasha regale them all with a story of some truly inept enemy agents she’d taken down over the past week, the story made even more amusing by her deep, dry monotone. He’s distracted, only now and then looking up from the calculations he’s working on to test out a new suit configuration. Sure, he _could_ do it all electronically, but now and then he likes crunching the numbers himself, writing them out by hand and watching the problems stretch out across a page, just waiting on him to solve them. 

“Tony?” 

He’s stuck on one problem in particular, tapping the end of his pen against his mouth, when he glances up to see Loki has moved from his seat to stand across the table from him, behind the row of holographic displays showing the various video feeds from his teammates. And somehow, the mage looks . . . almost nervous? He’s holding a new spellbook, evidently having wandered off to retrieve it while Tony wasn’t watching. 

Tony raises his eyebrows in an open invitation for Loki to continue. 

And _does he_. 

“I love you.” 

Natasha gets to the best part of the story, and for a moment Tony thinks he might have a grasp on how to solve the complicate mathematics on the paper in front of him, but suddenly all he can see is an anxious-looking god standing before him with wide eyes and slightly parted lips. 

“What?” 

“I said I kicked him in the face, and then—” 

“No, not you,” Tony interrupts, leaning forward in his seat and swiping the screens to the side to get them out of the way so that he can see Loki clearly. 

Loki swallows and glances down at the book in his hands, seemingly only just noticing it, and then very slowly lays it on the worktable, the tips of his long fingers just resting against the cover. 

“I’ve known for some time, I think. I had hoped it was . . . was something else. That I was confusing lust instead. I’ve fought it, scolded myself over it, tried to distance myself from it, and yet here I am.” He looks up at Tony finally, and even for all his skill at lying, he can’t do anything to hide the way his voice is shaking just enough to notice. “I believe I’m in love with you, Tony Stark.” 

“You’re—” 

Tony cuts that thought off almost immediately before he can say something he’s going to regret or that Loki is going to misinterpret and use as motivation to go on another world domination tour. He opens his mouth again, but this time Loki shakes his head, stopping him. 

“I don’t expect you to say it. I don’t even expect you to return those feelings. But you’ve opened your home to me. You’ve opened your _life_ to me. You have shown me a great deal of trust that I’m not certain I’ve earned, so I feel you’ve earned honesty from me, even just in this.” 

Tony’s heartbeat is pounding in his ears and muffling the noise from his teammates, their screens now pushed off to his right side. All he can hear now is Loki’s voice; all he can _think_ about is the way that, even if it’s only temporary, he’s being allowed a rare glimpse into Loki’s soul, or at least a part of him most don’t even know exists. But Tony—he’s known for a while. 

He knows a version of Loki—perhaps the truest version—that others have never seen or will ever get to see. He knows Loki hums to himself when he’s distracted, just simple tunes Tony doesn’t recognize but can only assume are holdovers from the same Asgard Loki claims to despise. He knows Loki gets so absorbed in his studies sometimes that not even the noise of the workshop can shake him. He knows Loki likes to sleep on the left side of the bed for whatever reason, no matter where they’re actually staying, and that he moves around a _lot_ in his sleep; Tony has woken up more than once with Loki’s feet in his face, the mage somehow having done a complete 180 during the night and fallen back asleep with his head at the foot of the bed. 

Tony knows Loki will watch almost anything Tony suggests, but he really only takes an interest in dramas and psychological thrillers, and he especially likes mysteries. He nearly always figures out the plot twists long before they’re revealed, but every now and then a movie takes him by surprise. Those are the ones he insists on watching again immediately to figure out precisely how the suspense was carried out without him noticing the twist. 

Tony knows Loki likes fresh fruit, especially citrus, and has a killer sweet tooth. He knows Loki isn’t really a fan of hard liquor or even beer, but he can put away an entire bottle of wine in a matter of minutes without even being fazed. He also knows that Loki is a surprisingly funny drunk, though it took bribing Thor into bringing back some Asgardian mead just to find something strong enough to counter Loki’s healing factor. The first time it happened was how Tony ended up crying laughing on the couch as Loki told him story after story—many of them complete bullshit, no doubt, because _Loki_ —of some of his and Thor’s exploits around Asgard and on their visits to other realms. The one about needing to dress Thor up as a giant’s bride and Loki accompanying him as the bride’s handmaiden had been especially good, and Tony still laughs to himself when he asked Thor about it later, fully expecting to be told the story was a lie, only for Thor to go red and mutter under his breath about smacking Loki into the sun with that hammer. 

He knows that, despite protests to the contrary, Loki actually has a romantic side. He brings Tony small gifts from his travels, little trinkets he finds that he thinks Tony might enjoy; they’re all proudly displayed around both this house and the Tower in New York (all except for a very _ambitious_ sex toy Loki had brought back once as a joke, right up until they tried it, hated it, and mutually agreed to never speak of that one again). Loki offers shoulder rubs at random, and brings Tony snacks when he hasn’t eaten in hours, and suggests they dress up and go out somewhere nice for dinner, and curls his arm around Tony’s shoulders when they’re in bed, playing with Tony’s hair as he reads—and sometimes he’ll read aloud to Tony, translating texts in languages which don’t exist on Earth, reading to him the stories of the elves and the dwarfs and whatever other Tolkien-like race he insists is real. 

But Tony knows the bad parts, too. He knows Loki has nights when he wakes shaking and panting and paces for hours just to tire himself out enough that he won’t _dream_ when he finally gives into exhaustion and tries to sleep. He knows most of the myths are gross distortions or outright fiction, but there are a couple which Tony has learned to never joke about or even mention; Tony still doesn’t know what Loki’s actual connection to someone named Sigyn is or why just her name is enough to throw him into a fit of rage before it turns into melancholy, but Tony can respect personal boundaries that are very clearly drawn. 

He knows how profoundly Loki misses his home, the same one he frequently says he wants to burn to ashes. He drove Loki out deep into the countryside once in what he thought was a romantic gesture. He spread out a blanket on a hillside and invited Loki to just lie with him. At one point, he looked over to see Loki staring up at the sky, crystal clear without the light pollution from the city, his face twisted in anguish while silent tears tracked down his temples and disappeared into his hair. “The stars are different here,” he’d said earlier that evening, and it was only seeing that odd sort of heartbreak later that Tony realized Loki was homesick and mourning for the golden realm he had been cut off from. 

Tony has seen the madness in Loki’s eyes, the cruelty, the murderous rage, the vindictiveness, the senseless violence, the love of pure chaos and of visiting that same chaos upon others. But he’s seen kindness, too. The same hands that have visited such pain on himself and others have also been achingly tender with him. The same eyes that have been so hard and cold have also looked at him with respect and fondness. The same magic that has been used against him with intent to hurt and kill has also been used to heal and protect him. 

Tony knows Loki. Knows him as much as he’s ever known anyone, probably more, and . . . well. These aren’t the idle observations of a booty call. Tony knows _that_ , too. 

And he knows where he stands, even if his gut clenches with what he finally has the courage to say. 

“I love you, too.” 

The words are out before he can stop them, hanging in the air between them like ghosts of better ideas. Loki’s eyes go wider still, as if he’s searching Tony’s face for some hint of the same lies or tricks he subjects others to, and Tony only offers a small grin. 

“I mean, I know I probably shouldn’t. You’re not the most stable person around. But hell, neither am I. So if we’re gonna do this, let’s do it right.” 

He stands and walks around the table to where Loki stands, clearly stunned but also appearing as though he’s daring to hope. Both hands cup the mage’s face to hold him still. 

“I love you. We’re so wrong for each other and so very, very _right_ , and we’re probably gonna fuck this up more than once, but . . . but I don’t care. Not about that. Just you. I love you.” 

Loki offers up a small but genuine smile as he leans in for a kiss that’s every bit as honest—and when Tony hears whistling, awkward throat-clearing, _and_ a distinct “Don’t make us watch this shit” behind him, he remembers—too late, obviously—that he’d only moved the screens without ending the call itself. 

“Tony,” Bruce speaks up finally, and Tony guesses he was the source of the throat-clearing. “You, uh. You know we can still see you, right? And hear you?” 

“I’m hanging up now,” Clint mutters before doing exactly that. 

Natasha is as impossible to read as always, but the very slight movement of her hand when Tony turns to look at the screens makes him wonder if she was the whistler. 

“Uh . . . hey, guys. So. I’ve been meaning to tell you—” 

“We already knew,” Steve announces, and on the screen next to him, Thor nods. 

“I am . . . concerned for you, Stark,” Thor adds, brow furrowed just slightly. “My brother is a trickster to the core. But if this is what you wish—” 

“Hell yeah, it is.” 

“—and if it’s genuine—” 

“I don’t _always_ lie, Thor.” 

“—then I will accept it.” 

“Spoken as though we want or need your blessing _or_ your permission,” Loki grumbles, but Tony just grins. 

“Hey, thanks, I guess. Are we, uh. Are we done here?” 

“Yes, we are,” Loki answers for the other Avengers, waving a hand to dismiss the holographic screens and ending the call entirely. Tony glances over his shoulder at where the screens had been, then back at Loki with a wry grin. 

“They’re gonna have a lot of questions for us. You know that, right?” 

“Of course.” Long arms wrap around Tony’s middle to tug him close enough so that they’re flush together, barely even enough space between them to breathe. “Your teammates can have you later. But for now? You are _mine,_ and I don’t mean to share you with them.” 

Another kiss until Tony breaks it off to come back up for air. 

“So I guess this means you win?” When met only with a confused expression, he shrugs and continues. “The whole point of this game was to throw me off and get me flustered on a call or when someone else was trying to talk to me. So . . . mission accomplished.” 

“That wasn’t my goal here,” Loki points out with a slight frown. 

“I know it wasn’t. But a win is a win. So what’s my punishment?” 

“Living with me, I imagine.” 

Tony rolls his eyes and leans up for another brief kiss. “Shut up. But hey, I guess that means your prize then is me.” 

Loki seems to consider this for a few moments before nodding his agreement, lips slowly curling up into another grin. “You make a fine prize.” 

“You’re damn right I do.” 

“But I didn’t say it only to—I do love you, Tony. My life would be infinitely less complicated if I didn’t, but . . .” 

“Yeah, mine too, but let’s be real: when has knowing what we _should_ do ever stopped either of from doing what he _want_ to do?” 

Loki chuckles. “Fair enough. I suppose I’ll have to devise a new game now, won’t I?” 

“Yeah.” Tony, still giddy in a way he doesn’t recall being with another person in years, maybe even ever, pulls Loki down and in for yet another kiss, slow and deep this time. He groans into Loki’s mouth when he feels an unnaturally cool hand sliding across the small of his back to flatten against his skin, firm and possessive. 

Loki will find a new game. He always does.


End file.
